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PKKSKNTKI) BY 



The United States and the War 



Addresses by James M. Beck, 
President of The Pennsylvania 
Society, with Introductions 
by the Rt. Hon. Viscount 
Bryce, O.M., and Rear- Admiral 
R. E. Peary, U. S. N., Retired. 
Edited by Barr Ferree. 



NEW YORK 

THE PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY 

249 West 13th Street. 



•33? 



DEC 5 ••'• 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Editorial Note 7 

Introduction. By the Editor 9 

Proceedings at the Luncheon of The Pennsylvania 
Society : 

Address of Rear-Admiral R. E. Peary 12 

Note from the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt [Facsimile] 13 

Address by the Hon. James M. Beck 14 

Verdun Menu [Facsimile] 25 

Proceedings at the Luncheon of The Pilgrims in London : 

Address by Viscount Bryce, O.M 27 

Address by the Hon. James M. Beck 32 

An American Advocate 44 

[Editorial from "London Daily Telegraph"] 



Editorial Note. 

It is due to President Beck to state that he is in no way 
responsible for this publication. Its plan and scope is solely the 
editor's. Intended primarily to report the proceedings at the 
luncheon tendered Mr. Beck by the Council of The Pennsylvania 
Society, on September 7, it seemed to the editor that the interest 
of this report would be heightened by including in it the notable 
address made by Mr. Beck at the luncheon of the Pilgrims in London 
on July 5. A brief account of his journey has necessarily been 
included as explaining the origin of these two addresses. The ex- 
tracts from the London Telegraph have further seemed appropriate 
to the present occasion. 

The editor gladly takes to himself full responsibility for the 
contents of this book, although his own share in its contents is 
unimportant. As for Mr. Beck, it is but fair to add that he has 
shown it so little favour that the proofs, necessarily submitted to 
him for correction, were only returned under protest and after 
vigorous persuasion. 

B. F. 



Introduction. 

The two addresses by President Beck which make up the larger 
part of the contents of the book were delivered under unusual cir- 
cumstances and constitute a notable contribution to the discussion 
of the position of the United States in the great European War. 
This position has not been at all understood abroad, where, as a na- 
tion, we have been the object of much misunderstood criticism. Mr 
Beck is the first American, and indeed at this writing the only Amer- 
ican, who has seriously devoted himself to the arduous task of pre- 
senting the American position in as favourable a light as possible to 
the Allies as represented by England and France. This is a patriotic! 
service of a very high order, and The Pennsylvania Society gladly 
undertakes this publication, that some record of this notable work 
may have permanent preservation. 

Mr. Beck's contributions to the literature of the war began very 
early in the great conflict in a group of newspaper articles that 
were given permanent form in his book, "The Evidence in the Case." 
The wide attention this received both at home and abroad im- 
mediately gave him international rank as a competent student of 
the causes of the war, and later articles and studies easily made 
him the foremost interpreter of American views in the colossal 
conflict. 

The interest aroused in his writings led naturally to the next step 
in a work which, at the outset, was doubtless not planned in a definite 
way, but which, as time passed, assumed a developed plan, and this 
was a personal appeal to the nations at war and with which the United 
States was closely connected by blood and commerce. A number of 
speeches in Canada, delivered at Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, and 
given under distinguished auspices, attracted immense attention in 
that country, and opened the way for the later journey to England 
and France, some of the more notable results of which are contained 
in this report. 

It had long been apparent to Mr. Beck, as indeed it must have 
been to most thinking Americans, that a definite statement of actual 
American thought and feeling towards the war was badly needed 



abroad. No one knew better than he that anything he might say or 
do would be purely personal and utterly devoid of political or official 
significance. No one was more fully alive to the fact that his 
voice would be but one from many millions. Yet as he had 
reached many ears in Canada, so it seemed likely that a similar 
audience would be found in the mother countries, and that a 
patriotic service would be rendered that might be of national value. 

These were the fundamental ideas that induced him to under- 
take the journey to England and France in the summer of 1916, 
when semi-officially invited to do so by leading publicists of both 
nations. The results as disclosed in the English press were far 
beyond the most sanguine expectation. Mr. Beck not only made a 
number of notable addresses — and we at home know how great his 
gifts are in this direction — but he was received as a messenger with 
a real message, welcomed and acclaimed wherever he went, and 
poured into willing ears and hearts a statement of American ideas 
and principles such as no one had before uttered in these days. 
While his trip was doubtless full of satisfaction to him for what 
he saw, he had a higher satisfaction in a realizing sense of definite 
aims accomplished. And if comparisons are needed one may point 
out that, since Henry Ward Beecher made his remarkable journey 
to England in the Civil War, no American has appeared in that 
country in a comparable way until Mr. Beck made his entirely 
personal and unofficial trip. 

The record of that journey can only be briefly stated. His 
most notable address was at the luncheon on July 5 of the Pilgrims 
in London, at which Lord Bryce presided, and the proceedings at 
which are annexed to the present document. Other addresses and 
meetings quickly followed. On the next day he was the guest of 
the Benchers of the Inner Temple. On July 7, he made an address 
at a joint luncheon of the Anglo-American Lunching Club and the 
London Centenary Committee ; in the evening he was the guest of 
the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, and later addressed the Hardwicke 
Society in the Middle Temple. On July 13, he addressed about fifty 
members of Pariament as the guest of Sir Gilbert Parker at the 
House of Commons. On July 18, he visited Edinburgh and was 
taken on a tour of inspection of one of the British Naval bases. 
The next day, as the guest of the Lord Provost of Glasgow, he 
made an address at the City Hall. On July 20, he was the guest of 

10 



the Lord Mayor of Manchester at lunch at the City Hall. On 
July 28, he left for France and visited several points of the Front. 
On August 5, he visited Verdun, and was the guest of the Command- 
ing General at lunch in a subterranean apartment. On August 
7, he was received by General Joffre, and on the evening of that 
day was the guest of M. Jules Cambon at a dinner which was at- 
tended by a number of members of the French Government, at which 
he made an address. Returning to London he spoke at a dinner given 
him by the Authors and Journalists of London. August 17, he was 
again a guest at the House of Commons, and in the evening dined 
with some of the authorities of Oxford in the Commons Hall of All 
Souls' College. He sailed for New York on August 19. 

This bare recital, however, gives only his public addresses. 
His time was crowded with other engagements, and he met many of 
the leading men in England at social events of a private character, 
including the Prime Minister, the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord 
Chancellor, and Mr. A. J. Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty, all 
of whom gave luncheons or dinners in his honour. One may feel 
assured that these meetings were fruitful in the highest degree to 
all concerned, both to the Englishmen taking part in them and to 
Mr. Beck himself. He was eagerly welcomed to the very soul of 
patriotic England, and more will doubtless come from this unofficial 
interchange of views than may yet be apparent. 

These brief notes of this remarkable journey have been com- 
piled that the reason for the luncheon of The Pennsylvania Society 
may be apparent. But, indeed no explanation is needed. Our Pres- 
ident had gone abroad on a mission of the highest patriotism, a 
mission the more lofty because voluntary and personal, a mission 
without public sanction and resting solely on the hope of one man 
to do something for his country that no one else had thought of 
doing. That he was at the same time doing something for a cause 
that lay close to his heart in no way lessens the general value of his 
effort or diminishes in the least its wider result. It was natural that 
we should feel gratified at the reception accorded our President 
while thus engaged, and it is natural also that we should, both in our 
luncheon and by this publication offer him a merited tribute of appre- 
ciation and affection, not only because of what he thus accomplished, 
but because he is a native Pennsylvanian. 

Barr Ferree. 

II 



Proceedings at the Luncheon for President 
James M. Beck, given by the Council of 
The Pennsylvania Society at the Bankers 
Club of America, September 7, 1916, Rear- 
Admiral Robert E. Peary, U. S. N., retired, 
presiding. 

Address of Admiral Peary. 

Gentlemen of The Pennsylvania Society: 

The imperative demands of public duties have prevented our 
Vice-President, Mr. Shonts, from filling this place to-day. The 
Committee has conferred upon me the distinguished honour, deeply 
appreciated, of presiding at the Luncheon given by the Council of 
The Pennsylvania Society, to our returning President, Mr. Beck. 

I have just a brief note here : 

"Dear Mr. Ferree: Unfortunately your invitation 
came too late for me to be able to accept. Pray present my 
heartiest regards to Mr. Beck. He is an American who has 
done his part in an effort to restore American self-respect 
during the last two years, 

"Sincerely yours, 

"Theodore Roosevelt.'' 

V^e are here to greet and welcome our President returning from 
abroad. Big of brain, eloquent of tongue, international of fame, he 
has been abroad carrying a message — a message as to what the United 
States of America stands for, and what the friendship of the United 
states means. 

The effect and forcefulness with which he has carried that mes- 
sage can be inferred from the report, which I know is well-founded, 
that while certain interests, which shall be nameless just now, have 
been endeavouring to conquer Great Britain and France for some- 
thing over two years, and have not yet succeeded. Our Beck of The 
Pennsylvania Society conquered them both in a month. 

12 



President Beck has been, during his visit abroad, in closest touch 
with the titanic object-lesson which our friends across the water 
are giving us to-day, without cost to us, but at infinite cost of blood 
and treasure to them. 

We shall be foolish and criminal if we do not read and heed and 
follow that object-lesson, and concentrate our energies on such a 
splendid preparedness on sea, on land and in the air, as shall render 
the Nation, and us and our children, safe and secure through coming 
generations. 

President Beck of The Pennsylvania Society: 



SAGAMORE MILI-. ^^f^^H ^^fff £ 



FACSIMILE OF NOTE FROM THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



13 



Address by President Beck. 

Admiral Peary, and Gentlemen of The Pennsylvania Society: 

When the Director of our Society did me the honour to cable 
me to London that it was your pleasure that I should be your guest on 
my arrival home, I hesitated to accept it, and suggested my doubts 
as to the wisdom of the step. I had gone to England and France on 
a mission, which, while unofficial, was distinctly pro-Ally in its 
sympathies. The Pennsylvania Society is neither pro-German nor 
pro- Ally, it is neither Republican nor Democrat, it has but one 
common bond of sympathy, its loyal love for Pennsylvania and the 
honour in which it holds the immortal Founder of Pennsylvania. 
I shall, therefore, ask your generous recognition of this fact 
that in the little that I shall say — and it will not be much, because 
you are all busy men and must return to your several occupations 
without any undue trespass on your time, — I am speaking as an 
individual, and not as President of The Pennsylvania Society. In 
other words, I am speaking as your guest ; and, therefore, you will 
not, I trust, accuse me or my kind and valued friend of many years' 
standing, Mr. Ferree, to whose suggestion I owe the great compli- 
ment of this luncheon, of any wish to commit The Pennsylvania 
Society to the advocacy of any political question, as to which its 
purposes and objects are wholly remote. 

This very gracious and beautiful compliment gives me a great 
deal of pleasure, for a reason which I may also explain. Almost 
my last function of very many in London was a dinner that the 
Authors and Journalists gave me ; and a most interesting dinner it 
was. In commending me to the mercies of the great Deep, the 
presiding Chairman predicted that I was returning to a warm wel- 
come which assuredly awaited me in New York. I said jocosely that 
I thought he did not understand New York, which was quite uncon- 
scious of the fact that I had even departed for England. I related 
the anecdote of Cicero, contained in one of his letters, I think, to 
Atticus. He had been absent from Rome for four or five years, 
and was returning from Sicily, and upon his landing at Baise, he met 
an old friend. After the usual exchange of salutations, Cicero said 

14 



to him with some timidity : "And what do they say of my return in 
Rome ?" And his friend answered, quizzically : "Cicero, they have 
not yet commenced to talk of your departure." 

I thought that was my fate; and it is, therefore, a gratifying 
experience to feel that in New York I have warm and good friends 
in The Pennsylvania Society, who welcome my return from what 
was, in many respects, an adventurous journey, and who extend to 
me this friendly salutation and greeting. 

I am going to forbear from trespassing much upon your time, 
however inviting the subject, not only for the reason that I have 
already mentioned, but also because traveller's tales are prover- 
bially tiresome. Only a few travellers can tell an interesting story ; 
one of them is on my left. He came from the North Pole, and his 
stories had the merit of novelty, and even his modest recital of a 
great achievement could not make us unmindful of his courageous 
endurance. Moreover, Admiral Peary had one advantage which I 
did not possess. May I add jocosely that in his tales no one could 
contradict him and thus Admiral Peary can enlarge with a freedom 
that I could not possibly have. 

Gentlemen, you have asked me to say a few words about my 
trip. It exceeded my most sanguine expectations, and I have the 
comforting reflection that I did contribute a little note to what, to 
my mind, is one of the greatest causes in civilisation, namely : The 
cause of Anglo-American fraternity. 

The genesis of my going was very simple. No one sent me. 
The Pilgrims Society of England invited me ; and even then, I 
hesitated to go, for it seemed to me a kind of impertinence for a 
civilian to go to England in the midst of a great struggle. But I 
did receive an intimation so authoritative that I could not question 
it, that if I cared to come to England with an expression of sympathy 
from those of the American People who thought as I did, it would 
be appreciated by a people who, although on the surface brusquely 
practical, are, in fact, one of the most sentimental peoples in the 
world. I have been re-paid a thousand-fold. All that was said to 
me about the character of my welcome did not suggest the reality 
and I can say with the Queen of Sheba that "the half was not told." 

For six weeks I was continuously the recipient of the most de- 
lightful courtesies. It was my privilege to meet most of the leading 
men in the public life of England and upon terms of delightful 

15 



confidence and intimacy. The Authors and Journalists of London 
gave me a dinner. The Benchers of the Inner Temple and Lincoln's 
Inn similarly honoured me. I was welcomed at Oxford by Fellows 
of All Souls' College. I spoke at three different functions given for 
me in the Luncheon Room of the House of Commons, two of them 
being attended by at least forty members of Parliament. I was 
entertained both in Manchester and Glasgow by the Executives of 
those cities. Can you wonder that I return with a heart overflowing 
with gratitude, not only on account of my reception in England, but 
also in the not less cordial, although briefer, reception that I had 
in France. 

If you would ask me the two things that most impressed me, 
I would say without hesitation. The Grand Fleet, a part of which 
I was privileged to see, and Verdun. Such boats as the Inflexible, 
the Lion, the Tiger, the Crescent, the Canada and the Warspite give 
a deep impression of England's sea-power. I saw the Warspite and 
I can testify that it is very much afloat, and if any German super- 
dreadnoughts will come out of Kiel or Wilhelmshaven, they will 
receive a hot and most impressive greeting. 

I crossed the channel on a Military Transport, full of many 
English Tommies and their officers, and I can assure you that I was 
glad to note that two torpedo destroyers were on either side of our 
boat with their guns trained on the surface of the water, and ready 
to fire the moment a submarine periscope showed above the water. 

I reached Boulogne and a motor-car was waiting to take me 
to the British Headquarters. We motored through the beautiful 
August harvest fields of France, and reached the general headquar- 
ters, where I was warmly welcomed by Sir Douglas Haig and his 
staff. Then for three days I beheld a spectacle that I regard as one 
of the greatest events of my life, the battle of the Somme, one of 
the most stupendous in history. As we were going from Fricourt 
to Mametz we witnessed the wonderful spectacle of a battle in the 
skies. One German aeroplane passed immediately over our heads 
and dropped bombs, which hit the earth about 800 feet away. We 
there saw what had been a German dug-out, and I can testify to 
the ingenuity they display in defending their lines. 

That reminds me of something that Admiral Peary referred to 
in our little preliminary talk to-day. If every citizen of the United 
States could see what I have seen, the cause of Preparedness would 

16 



advance rapidly ; because the confidence that I have that the Allies 
are going to win this fight, and that within a far less time than is 
generally believed, is based upon the fact that they now have, and I 
had the ocular demonstration, the command of the air — and that is 
all-important. 

When we went to Paris we saw an Aviation Manufactory, 
I asked the French Colonel how many men they employed. 
He said 2,000 men on aeroplanes ; and I imagine that was only one 
of their factories, although probably their largest. Every day at 
least twelve injured aeroplanes are brought in, the planes repaired 
and sent back to the front. And while I could not count them, I 
believe that the number in that one single manufactory near Paris 
was at least 500 aeroplanes. 

Well do I remember the flight of Wilbur Wright up the Hudson 
in what was a comparatively crude machine, which the genius of 
our Dayton boys fashioned for all the world, and we can now see the 
enormous diflFerence between the crude machine of Wilbur Wright's 
day and the perfectly marvelous machines of all types that the 
genius of France has put into the field. And in that connection let 
me say that one of the French Colonels said to me, that of all the 
aviators in the French Army none surpassed the skill and audacity 
of our American boys. 

The command of the air is of utmost importance, because if 
you could see as I saw at Verdun and at the Somme the terrain, you 
would realize what the mastery of the air means in a hilly country. 
You cannot see beyond the first ridge of hills, and therefore 
the artillery must be guided either by aeroplanes or obser- 
vation balloons. And during the time I was on the Somme, and 
in the three or four days subsequent that I motored from Verdun to 
Reims, I never saw but one German aeroplane come over the 
French lines ; and that was the one to which I referred. 

There was hardly a time when we could not see from 
two to twelve French or English aeroplanes flying over the German 
lines. One of the most beautiful sights is to see these aeroplanes in 
the blue sky of France, surrounded by a constellation of what looks 
like cotton balls, but which really are shrapnel shells bursting all 
about them. You see them darting through these little puffs of 
shrapnel, and you then appreciate the compliment paid to our young 
American aviators, when at 10,000 feet above the earth they fly 

17 



through the manifold perils that beset their adventurous course 
through the skies. 

After I had seen the battle of the Somme, I went to Paris, 
where I was given a dinner by Jules Cambon, who was virtually the 
Foreign Minister of France, at which I was privileged to meet a 
number of prominent men. I was taken to Verdun, It was the 
most glorious experience of my life to visit this place, assuredly one 
of the most holy spots in the world. For nearly 200 days men have 
fought there on both sides with consummate and unheard-of bravery, 
at a daily toll of 4,000 casualties a day. The total casualties at 
Verdun one month ago to-day were over 840,000. I was told the 
exact figures for the French and the Germans, but I do not feel at 
liberty to disclose them, because that would, I think, exceed the 
bounds of the confidence reposed in me. But it is enough to say that 
800,000 and more brave men, wearing the field-gray of the German 
uniform, and the faded blue of the French uniform, have been 
killed, wounded or captured in the most titanic struggle that history 
has ever recorded; and I, as a believer in the cause of the Allies, 
rejoice that in that stupendous contest French valour has prevailed, 
and saved Verdun and France from any further invasion. 

You may be interested to know what impression I received as 
to the spirit of the two peoples among whom it was my privilege to 
mingle. To come back to America from France and England is as 
though I came back from the planet Mars to earth. The spirit is 
entirely different. Superficially men and women are precisely the 
same; but the everlasting difference that impresses any one of 
spiritual imagination is that in England and France, and I do not 
doubt in Germany, every man, woman and child, speaking generally, 
seems to be concentrated upon his duty to the State; what he can 
do to serve the country under whose flag he is privileged to live. 

I read to-day the following statement of Mr. Garrettson, the 
head of the Railway Union, made in Washington in the recent col- 
lision between labour and capital : 

"In times like this men go back to primal instinct, to 
the day of the cave-man, who, with his half-gnawed bone, 
snarled at the other cave-man and wanted to take his bone 
away. We leaders are fighting for our men, the railroads 

18 



are fighting for their stockholders, and the shippers for 
themselves. And the public will pay." 

If Mr. Garrettson is right in thinking that this accurately de- 
scribes the present spirit of our people, then it is in such striking 
contrast to the perfectly extraordinary spirit of stoical courage, and 
infinite self-sacrifice that you see in England and France, that the 
contrast is painful, although it is explainable upon the ground that 
in Europe they are fighting for their lives, and we are not. Probably, 
under like circumstances, as in the days of the Civil War between 
1861 and 1865, we would have the same splendid sense of responsi- 
bility and obligation. But in these piping times of peace no one in 
this country can appreciate the spirit of Europe unless you have 
felt it. 

You go to a dinner in London, you turn, for instance, to the 
beautifully gowned woman on your right, and you find she has three 
sons in the war of whose death she may hear at any moment. Again, 
you may talk to a gentleman who wears no semblance of mourning 
— and this actually happened to me — and he will be seemingly genial 
and afifable, without a complaint or murmur of discontent, and then 
with a slight dropping of his voice, he will tell you that he has lost 
three brothers in the war. You find that spirit everywhere. 

Three million five hundred thousand men, women and children 
are v/orking by day and night in the munitions factories, of 
whom 700,000 are women, and they do not stand on an eight-hour 
day. They will work twelve hours if necessary to turn out the 
munitions to enable the brave men at the front to continue the fight. 
In France there is an almost religious ecstasy in their spirit ; even 
the children seem to feel their responsibility to an extent that is 
simply amazing until you have once been steeped in the atmosphere ; 
and then you come home and realize that you have seen a people 
transfigured. 

Miss Aldrich, in her charming Hill Top on the Marne, illus- 
trates this spirit in telling of the young French mother, whose hus- 
band just left, who, when asked whether she was not sorry to have 
her husband go to the front, replied: "Sorry? Why, I am only his 
wife, France is his mother." You may think that was merely an ex- 
pression of transient emotionalism. On the contrary, it is their life. 

19 



In our prosperity our country seems to many of us only as a great 
corporation in which we are a kind of stockholder, whose chief con- 
cern is our rights and our interests ; but how often do we speak or 
even think of our duties ! Not so in France. To her people France 
is a mother, and they are fighting for their mother, just as if France 
were a living, conscious being. 

When I passed over the beautiful fields of the Marne, and en- 
tered the little graveyards that dot the beautiful harvest fields of 
France, I would often see on the little crosses above the graves, 
after the name of the soldier, the inscription : "Un enfant de France, 
mort pour la Patrie," that is: "A child of France, died for his 
country." And that is very real to them, because France is their 
mother; and when they die on the field of battle their families sin- 
cerely feel that the great mother-heart of France has gathered the 
dead soldier forever to her maternal bosom. 

Their attitude to us is not altogether easy or pleasant to de- 
scribe. So far as courtesy to me is concerned, it was wonderful, and 
so far as courtesy to any American, who has sympathized with their 
cause, it would be the same if not more. But when you sound 
the heart of the people, you find that they are in varying degrees 
disappointed with America. It is not because we remained neutral. 
They quite understand that, certainly the more intelligent ones do. 
They did not expect us to come into the war ; they do not expect us 
now. Many of them do not even want us to do so, because they feel 
that the problems of peace will be sufficiently complex without our 
participation. But they feel keenly, and I heard this from many 
people, that we might have expressed a word of sympathy for Bel- 
gium and a protest against its invasion. They feel that we were a 
people who had insistently proclaimed itself as the special champion 
of justice, liberty and humanity, and when an opportunity presented 
itself to champion a little nation that had been so ruthlessly invaded 
in defiance of international law, our government remained silent. 
Even that they would have understood, but it is a fact — I hesitate to 
say it, but American citizens should know it, that the tactless and 
callous remarks of our President wounded them deeply. 

An American was travelling in a railroad car in England, and he 
thought that he would be pleasant to an Englishman who was on the 
other side of the car, and employing a little American slang, he said 

20 



to the Englishman: "Some (Somme) fight!" and the Englishman 
simply replied : "Some don't." 

With the cries of our drowning women and children still ring- 
ing in our ears, they cannot understand how we reconcile the "too 
proud to fight" statement with our claim to be the special guardian of 
justice and liberty. Still more disappointing was Mr. Wilson's amaz- 
ing statement that our country had no concern with either the causes 
or the objects of this war. That cut them to the very heart. They 
felt and believed with sincerity that they were giving the best blood 
of their youth ; and wasting their treasure like water for a cause in 
which the United States was vitally interested as they were, so far 
as it afifected the majesty of international law ; and to be told that 
this country had no interest whatever, either in the object or the 
causes of the war, seemed to them a gratuitous reflection on the 
cause for which they are fighting. 

Then came the other remark that they were "madmen" and that 
cut. Whatever else they are, they are not madmen, and in that I 
mean the people of all of these countries, Germany and Austria as 
well as England, France and Russia. Never were men so terribly 
sane. Each of these great contending nations, fighting for its life, 
knows what it is doing, knows the colossal interests at stake, and 
are doing what they do courageously and heroically. To be 
called "madmen" seemed to them a rather harsh and undeserved 
return for the exhibition of self-sacrifice and courage such as I 
think the world has never known before. 

A true man does not value the little things that he possesses 
or may have accomplished in his life; but the good-will of his friends 
and neighbours. His character as a man, — that is not only his rich- 
est possession, but the dearest heritage he can leave his children. 
And so it is with a nation. And this nation, that prior to this war 
was the best-beloved nation in the world, the friend of all and the 
enemy of none, is to-day in a position where its prestige is at least 
for the time-being materially impaired ; and if we are ever to regain 
the confidence and respect of the world, we must show our sympathy 
for the cause which we believe to be right. Do not understand that 
English or Frenchmen are hostile to this country. They are not. 
England and France want our friendship. They are bleeding almost 
to death in a fight that they believe is the fight of civilisation. They 
are willing to make the sacrifice ; and they know and believe that if, in 

21 



the next fifty years, similar struggles are to be undergone in order to 
vindicate the majesty of reason above brute-force, in that event 
they cannot forever make the sacrifices, and the two great democ- 
racies of Europe hope that the United States may then be a friend 
and future ally. 

The great problem for Americans to consider is what we can still 
do to give to our country the high position among the nations of the 
earth that it once enjoyed. Let us remember that there is a great 
future before this country, and many important problems will await 
civilization in the sequelae that is bound to follow this titanic struggle. 
We must, sooner or later, recognize our friends in the world; and 
those who are sympathetic with the ideals which are the raison d'etre 
for historic America. 

Let us hope that there may come to our people a wider vision ; 
that we may see that we cannot forever be a detached and isolated 
state ; that whether we will or not, we are bound to play a tremen- 
dous part in the future struggles of civilisation. Therefore, let us 
pray that our country — whatever may have been its sins of omission 
or commission in the last two years — may gain a wider vision, 
and that it shall take such a part in the histor}.- of the world as a 
nation of one hundred millions of people ought to take to be true 
to its historic destiny. 



22 



Admiral Peary: 

President Beck's eloquent and first-hand talk has been a liberal 
education to those of us fortunate enough to be here this afternoon. 
One expression of his, "command of the air," makes me wish to add 
just one word in supplement to that, and quote briefly a few recent 
public statements on the subject by prominent men abroad. 

Mr. Balfour on the floor of the House of Commons said : 

"The time is here when command of the sea will be of 
no value to Great Britain without corresponding command 
of the air." 

Lord Charles Beresford on the floor of the House of Lords: 

"The time is here when the air service of Great Britain 
will be more vital for her safety than her Army and her 
Navy combined." 

Colonel Winston Churchill, formerly First Lord of the Ad- 
miralty : 

"Ultimately, and the sooner the better, the air service 
should be one unified permanent branch of imperial defense, 
composed exclusively of men who will not think of them- 
selves as soldiers, sailors, and individuals, but as airmen 
and servants of an arm which possibly at no distant date 
may be the dominating arm of war." 

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu : 

"Every nation will before long be forced to create an 
Air Ministry by that sheer necessity which knows no law, 
which regards no precedent, and which fears no Govern- 
ment. The immense development of aircraft in all direc- 
tions alone will compel the creation of an air department." 

General Petain, one of the defenders of Verdun, on the floor 
of the Chamber of Deputies: 

"I see France in the near future with 50,000 aero- 
planes." 

Lord Montagu: 

"What is wanted now in our statesmen and in our 
nation is more power of imagination. What we want now 

23 



are new men with new ideas. Problems of the air are all 
new. There are no precedents to bear in mind, no files to 
refer to, no historical works to consult. The new service 
will need leaders who have ideals, foresight, imagination, 
and scientific training. These leaders must always have a 
clear vision of future possibilities, most of which are prob- 
abilities." 

These are the statements of men who are in the thick of things, 
who know whereof they speak, men upon whose shoulders rests the 
responsibility of the very existence of their respective nations. 

There is to-day no more crucial thing before this country than a 
separate, independent Aeronautical Department, with a seat in the 
President's Cabinet, having under its control a comprehensive system 
of Aero Coast Defense; a system of Aviation Training Schools 
located in each of the principal geographical divisions of the country, 
and the civil and commercial possibilities and developments in 
aeronautics. 



24 




\i: 



'"111 

■4, 



Q)aJLauJiL die VoJJmul^ 



A FACSIMILE of the Menu of a luncheon 
^^ given President Beck at Verdun (under- 
ground) by the Commanding General, August 
5, 1916, is reproduced on the preceding page. 

The original is endorsed: 

"In remembrance of your very kind visit to 
Verdun, 1 take this opportunity to assure you of 
my admiration and sympathy for your great and 
noble country. 

"Commanding in Verdun" 

As it was a condition of Mr. Beck's visit 
that no names of persons be made public, 
the signature is omitted. 



26 



Proceedings at a meeting of the Pilgrims, Savoy 
Hotel, London, July 5, 1916, the Rt. Hon. 
Viscount Bryce, O.M., Presiding. 

Address by Viscount Bryce. 

My Lords and Gentlemen: 

I now rise to ask you to drink the health of Mr. Beck. We have 
not had a luncheon of the Pilgrims since July, 1914, immediately 
before the outbreak of war, and then little knew how much we 
were going to owe to Mr. Beck's countrymen, for the sympathy 
the great majority of them have shown in all our efforts and struggles 
of the past, and for the moral support they have given to the cause 
which they believe to be a righteous cause. Mr. Beck comes to us 
not unknown. I hardly feel like introducing him to you because 
I am sure there cannot be one of you who does not know what 
admirable work he has done for the Allied cause in his own country. 
Unsolicited by any one on the part of the Allies, moved only by his 
strong sense of enthusiasm for what he believed to be right and just, 
Mr. Beck, shortly after the beginning of the war, set himself to study 
its causes, and the responsibility for its outbreak, and produced a 
book on that subject which for the clearness of its statements and 
the cogency of its legal arguments has not been surpassed, if indeed 
it has been equalled, by any writer since the war began. 

Mr. Beck, as a trained lawyer, and a distinguished member 
of the great profession which he adorns, saw the necessity of 
examining the question with the lawyer's eye, and by his clear dis- 
passionate analysis of the facts and circumstances that preceded 
the war, he has produced his most convincing book, entitled "The 
Evidence in the Case," showing upon which side right and justice 
lie. I dare say you know Mr. Beck has rendered us another service. 
He has gone to Canada, and by the speeches which he has made there 
he has roused, if it were possible to rouse, further enthusiasm in 
Canada for that common cause which Canada has maintained with 
such splendid valour. There is nothing we can look back upon in 
these dark and trying days with more satisfaction, and look forward 

27 



to with more hopeful enthusiasm, than the fact that the public 
opinion of the United States has been in unison with the public 
opinion of Canada, and that both of them have given us that moral 
support which we have prized so highly. Mr. Beck is here on a 
short visit, in the course of which many of us will, I trust, have 
opportunities of seeing him in private, and in the course of which 
he will also visit parts of the country sufficient to enable him to see 
that the feeling that moves us here in London is no less hearty and 
ardent everywhere over our country. He will wish when he returns 
to tell his countrymen what he has seen here, and to tell them in 
particular why we are resolved all over Britain to prosecute this 
war with our utmost energy. 

Mr. Beck will tell you what the sentiment of the United States 
is, but I think I shall not anticipate him too far if I say that ever 
since the merits of the case became known, and not least owing to the 
efforts that he and others have made to enlighten his and their 
countrymen, the opinion of all that is best and wisest in the United 
States has been overwhelmingly with us. Nevertheless, there is in 
the United States a certain small section of those who call themselves 
Lovers of Peace, who are from time to time heard suggesting that 
the terrors and horrors of war are so great that the Powers are 
bound at all hazards and on any terms to conclude a peace. I 
received a few days ago, as probably some others among you have 
done, an address from the United States, signed by a certain number 
— by no means a large number — of United States citizens, urging 
upon the people of this country that this war is and will be indecisive, 
that it will end in what is called "a draw," and that the best thing 
we can do is to make peace upon any sort of terms, which I suppose 
means terms which Germany would be willing to accept forthwith. I 
notice that a large proportion of the small number of signatories of 
that address came from Germany or had German names, and that 
fact has some significance. 

Now, with your permission, I should like to tell Mr. Beck, and 
I think I may do so on your behalf, why it is that we do not propose 
to follow this advice, and I feel sure that when he has had oppor- 
tunities of learning the sentiment of this country, he will carry back 
to his own countrymen a full and just picture of that sentiment. 

28 



Now, Mr. Beck, we too, whom you see here are also lovers of peace. 
Speaking for myself, I may say that I have worked for peace inside 
and outside Parliament for more than thirty years, and I see around 
me many others who have done the same. We are as much impressed 
by the horrors of war as any pacifist in the United States can be. 
We yield to no one in our desire that these horrors and this blood- 
shed should cease. Why, gentlemen, there is not one of us who has 
not lost relatives and friends, who made to him much of the joy 
and pleasure of life. Why is it then that we think that the time 
for making peace has not yet arrived? 

In the first place, gentlemen, this war is not going to be a draw. 
The Allies are going to win. We believe that they will win not 
merely because our own troops are daily driving back the Germans 
in France, not merely because of the brilliant advance which the 
armies of Russia are making, not merely because of the resistance of 
the soldiers of France standing like a rock and delivering magnificent 
counter-charges against the enemy with all the traditional valour 
that belongs to that great nation. We believe it, and have all along 
believed it, because we know the balance of strength is with the 
Allies, that our resources are greater, and that with those greater 
resources we shall triumph on land, and because we know also that 
we hold the unshaken and unshakeable control of the seas. Then 
further, we believe that the German Government are not prepared to 
make peace upon any terms we can possibly accept. The German 
Government themselves may know that they are going to be beaten, 
but their people do not yet know it. They have fed their people 
with falsehoods, keeping them in total ignorance of the true state 
of affairs. They have endeavoured to beguile and cheer their people 
by prospects of territorial conquests and annexations, and they are 
now afraid to acknowledge the truth, and to disappoint the German 
people by consenting to peace upon such terms as we and our Allies 
can accept. 

Another thing also I will ask Mr. Beck to tell his countrymen. 
It is this : We in Britain feel that any peace made upon the present 
position of affairs would not be a real peace. It would be a mere 
truce. It would be a truce full of disquiet, of constant anxieties 
and recurring alarms. Preparations for war would continue ; and 

29 



the nations would again be pressed down by the frightful weight of 
armaments. And, lastly, there is one more reason why peace cannot 
be made at this moment. It is not for ourselves merely that we are 
fighting : it is for great principles, to which we owe a duty. We are 
fighting for those principles of right and humanity which the German 
Government has outraged and which must at all costs be maintained. 
We do not hate the German people. We have no desire to break up 
Germany, nor to inflict a permanent injury upon the German people. 
Our quarrel is with the German Government. What we desire is to 
exorcise that evil spirit which a long regime of Prussianism has been 
implanting in the Germans. We want to discredit a military caste 
and a military system which threatens every country in the world, 
threatens the American countries too, Mr. Beck, your own country 
as well as ours. 

Here, in Europe, Germany has not been content since 1871 to be 
a great and prosperous nation living in peace with other nations be- 
side it. Under the influence of this militant caste and in this military 
and aggressive spirit there has grown up a desire to dominate the 
world, and now the only safety for the world is to discredit that 
spirit and that case. That spirit has been implanted, and that caste 
has obtained control of Germany and imposed its yoke upon the 
German people, owing to a series of successes in three wars, those of 
1864, 1866, and 1870. It is the prestige of those three wars in which 
Germany was successful that has enabled this caste to rivet it.> 
dominion upon the German people, and has filled the German people 
with this spirit of aggression, and to-day nothing but the destruction 
of that prestige, and nothing but the discrediting of that caste, will 
enable the German people to recover their liberty. I hope — and I 
think we can see already some signs for our hope — that when that 
spirit has been cast out of Germany and her people have for them- 
selves recovered that liberty for which they were striving before 
Bismarck's ascendancy began, they will be willing again to live at 
peace with their neighbours. Meantime, we must go on. We did not 
enter this war to win anything for ourselves, and all that we want 
now as the result of the war is security for ourselves and our great 
oversea Dominions, that Belgium and Northern France should be 
delivered from the invader, that compensation be made to Belgium 

30 



for what she has suffered, and that there shall be effected such 
changes in the East as will prevent the Turkish allies of Germany 
from ever again massacring their Christian subjects, and will prevent 
those Turkish allies from being used as the vassals and tools of 
Germany in that Eastward march which she has planned. 

Gentlemen, we must go on with the war till Germany has been 
brought to a frame of mind in which she will accept such terms as 
these. This battle which we are waging is a battle for those principles 
of right which were violated when innocent non-combatants were 
slaughtered in Belgium, and when innocent non-combatants were 
drowned in the Lusitania. The allies must press on to victory. 
They must press on till victory has been won for those principles, 
and there has been established a permanent peace resting on the sure 
foundations of justice and freedom. Gentlemen, I ask you to drink 
the health of our friend, Mr. Beck. 

The toast was received with the singing of " For he's a Jolly 
Good Fellow." 



31 



Address by Mr. Beck. 

My Lords and Gentlemen: 

I fear I am not at the present moment the"jolly good fellow" 
referred to by Mr. Harry Brittain and chanted in your song. I am 
a very serious fellow at this minute, because I have a task of unusual 
delicacy and difficulty. 

Let me say in the first place to Lord Bryce that I shall carry 
back the message with which he has done me the honour to entrust 
to me, and it will receive a very ready response among the thoughtful 
people of my country, for I am persuaded that the best thought of 
America is that it would be a world-wide calamity if this war did not 
end with a conclusive victory for the principles so nobly defended 
by the Allies. I will also carry back the possibly unnecessary message 
that this war is not going to be a draw. I was in this country in the 
first month of the war, and then England reminded me of a great 
St. Bernard dog which, in a spirit of noblesse oblige, complacently 
wagged its tail when attacked by a powerful adversary. To-day 
England seems to me like a bulldog with the business end of his 
jaws firmly set in his assailant's throat. 

What I appreciate more than I can express in words, is the 
magnificent compliment of this luncheon, and yet I know full well 
that the distinction of this gathering of notable men in a busy hour 
is due in great part to the dynamic energy and thoughtful kindness of 
Mr. Harry Brittain, the Chairman of the Pilgrims, whose good work 
for Anglo-American fraternity for many years past on both sides of 
the Atlantic we have a grateful appreciation in the United States. 
In America we generally know your Empire as England. There are 
some Americans who are not quite sure as to the exact political 
signification of the other name. Great Britain. I shall carry back a 
message to my country men as to the exact meaning of that term. 
Great Brittain is an individual, not a nation. 

Let me further say, by way of introduction, that I also take 
with a great deal of hesitation the magnificent compliment which 
the author of the "American Commonwealth" has been pleased to 

32 



pay me. I know full well that in the generous appreciation, which 
you have shown me, and which he has confirmed by his gracious 
reference to the little I have done, that you have greatly exaggerated 
any service that I was privileged to render, and yet I shall not blunt 
the fine edge of the compliment by too vigorous a disclaimer. You 
know that Lord Bryce's name in my country carries immense weight, 
possibly more so than any other publicist of any nation. When 
Lord Bryce speaks, whether in printed page or oral speech, we are 
accustomed to accept it as almost ex cathedra, and I therefore feel, 
in view of what he has said about my little contribution to the con- 
troversial history of the war, very much as Dr. Johnson did when he 
visited King George III. and His Majesty was pleased to make some 
very complimentary remarks about the Fleet Street philosopher's 
dictionary. When Dr. Johnson returned to the ever faithful Boswell, 
and told him with natural gratification what His Majesty had said, 
Boswell said, "What did you say when the King praised your 
dictionary?" Dr. Johnson replied: "Am I a man to bandy words 
with my Sovereign? If His Majesty says that my dictionary is the 
best in the English language, it must be so." Similarly I shall accept, 
not because I believe it, or without great misgivings, Lord Bryce's 
gracious introduction and the generous references which he has 
made to the "Evidence in the Case." 

I have come here to bring a message of good-will from the 
American Pilgrims, and because you are all busy men I wish to 
speak as briefly and rapidly as possible. I have not any prepared 
speech. This is not the time for didactic essays or ornate orations. 
In these dreadful days — to use the fine phrase of Tom Paine, "the 
times that try men's souls" — the only thing that is valuable in speech 
is sincerity, and it is in that spirit I want to speak to you about the 
only topic of which you may wish to hear me : namely, the relations 
of the United States to this war and to the Allies. 

There is one obvious limitation upon any discussion of the 
subject at my hands. Whatever may be my views at home, I cannot 
discuss the political policies of the party of the day in the United 
States. I have very strong convictions with respect to many of these 
policies, and I have not hesitated to express them with great freedom 
to audiences of my own countrymen, but if I shall ever be tempted 

33 



to criticise in a public gathering in a foreign land either the Presi- 
dent of the United States or the Government of the day, may my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! 

Be the acts of a political Government what they may, the 
vital importance for the great future is what has been the spirit of 
the people, because in the long run that is more significant than the 
temporary policy of any party of the day. I have only gratifying 
news to bring to this distinguished audience as to the attitude of our 
people. 

I was in England, as I have said, in the first month of the war. 
I remember with what interest, perhaps I might almost say solicitude, 
thoughtful Englishmen asked, when the war came as a bolt out of 
the blue, what will be the verdict of America? It was not merely 
the sentimental side of that verdict which interested you, although 
I think some of you attached great importance to what your kinsmen 
across the Atlantic would say as to ethical aspects of the great 
controversy. But there were obvious practical aspects with respect 
to your great Empire which made the question of some importance. 
It was important to know how America would view a great world 
crisis, as to which all its past political traditions gave it no preliminary 
prepossessions. 

The verdict that came to you across the Atlantic was spon- 
taneous and overwhelming. We have in our history viewed with 
varied feelings and a lack of clearly preponderating views the 
previous wars of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, as we considered 
them in their ethical and practical aspects. But in this case the over- 
whelming sentiment of the people, whether expressed by press or 
pulpit, by university, or college, by bankers, merchants, or the masses 
toiling in the factories and the fields, was overwhelmingly in favor 
of the Allies. Excluding one or two elements of our population, 
which by reason of ties of blood to some extent ran counter to that 
general opinion, the preponderating judgment of the American 
people was then and after eighteen months remains to-day, without 
diminution or shadow of turning, heart and soul with the Allies. 

While that verdict needs no further statement, for it is a 
commonplace of our current political history, yet it has certain 
features which may not have received full recognition in this country. 

34 



In the first place, it was a dispassionate verdict. I mean by 
that it was little affected by racial kinship. I believe that the Amer- 
ican people, if they had thought that England was in the wrong in 
unsheathing its sword on behalf of Belgium, or in entering upon 
this great world quarrel, would have reached that conclusion unin- 
fluenced by racial kinship or the ties of blood. The verdict was as 
clearly dispassionate as one could expect in a verdict of human 
beings. 

In the second place it was not an academic verdict, reached after 
coffee at the breakfast table and forgotten before the shadows of 
evening fell. It was a verdict rendered after the greatest intellectual 
controversy that my country ever knew. For eighteen months its 
people day and night discussed this question ; it was commonplace 
of conversation to say that whenever a group of intelligent men and 
women were gathered together all subjects inevitably lead to the 
war. Moreover, Germany, appreciating the value of the American 
verdict, did not hesitate to appoint its advocatus diaholi in the person 
of Dr. Dernburg, who, financed by millions, and aided by thousands 
of German volunteers, attempted at every cross-road and in the 
centres of our cities, to reverse that verdict by a very torrent of 
controversial argument and by appeals to every idea or emotion which 
they thought might impress the American. They appealed to our 
supposed cupidity, our fears, our prejudices, our interests, to every 
consideration which might affect the spontaneous verdict that was 
first pronounced. Yet they were finally obliged to admit that this 
judgment of the American people was a settled, matured, deliberate 
and irrevocable judgment — in no respects academic, but such a 
judgment as a court of law would pronounce upon a consideration 
of all the facts. 

Again, this verdict was a militant verdict. I mean that the 
American people did not in a spirit of moral dilettantism simply 
express an opinion about this war, and then resume their normal 
activites. To an extent far greater than perhaps some of you appre- 
ciate, American men, women and children, have been for eighteen 
months working in their several capacities, either to alleviate the 
sufferings of the war or to stem the German propaganda, by building 
up a strong militant public opinion for the Allies. So that if the war 

35 



is a war primarily of ideas and ideas, we have been participants to 
some extent, and our part has not been only that of a cold, callous, 
selfish outsider, as some have thought. 

Finally, this verdict was in a sense a disintersted verdict, by 
which I mean that it was little affected by our own interests. We did 
not ask whether it was to our interests that this or that group of 
nations should triumph. Indeed, our sense of detachment made it 
seem to us that neither the fate of Belgium or Servia affected us 
directly in a purely practical sense, and it was therefore the ethical 
aspects of the issue which powerfully appealed to our emotions and 
made us willing and enthusiastic adherents of the Allies' cause. 

You will however ask, that if the verdict was thus overwhelming, 
why did it not find a greater reflex in the action of the Government 
as a political entity. I have said that I cannot discuss the political 
policies of the party of the day of my country. While I am not of 
that party, still it speaks for my country, and while I reserve the 
right to criticise it in my own country, yet with me and every true 
American politics stop at the margin of the ocean, and therefore I 
cannot criticise the present Administration in Washington in another 
country. But I can give you the reason why in the very nature of 
things the United States as a political entity could not take any other 
part than that of neutrality in this world crisis. 

England and the United States are both conservative nations, 
certainly the two most conservative democracies of the world. We 
love settled institutions. We cling to the old; we dread the new. 
We believe that that which has in the past been tried, has a violent 
presumption in its favour. Never was a nation more dominated by 
a tradition than our nation was by the tradition of its political isola- 
tion. It has its roots in the very beginnings of the American 
commonwealth. In nine generations no political party and few public 
men have ever questioned its continued efficacy. The pioneers, who 
came in 1620 across the Atlantic to Plymouth Rock and founded 
the American Commonwealth, desired, like the intrepid Kent in 
"King Lear," to "shape their old course in a country new," so that 
the spirit of detachment from Europe was implanted in the very souls 
of the pioneers who conquered the virgin forests of America. Our 
Colonial history was a constant struggle between this spirit of detach- 

36 



ment on the part of the pioneers and the centralizing demands of the 
Mother Country. Our revolt was not merely about a 2d. stamp on 
tea. We proclaimed independence from the same instinct of separa- 
tion and detachment. When Washington in the Napoleonic wars 
proclaimed a policy of neutrality, he again expressed the instinctive 
feeling of his countrymen that America should not be the shuttlecock 
of European politics. We had had long experience of this. As 
Macaulay said, the rape of Silesia had made the whites and Indians 
fight upon the shores of the Hudson and the Great Lakes. 

When Washington gave in his great Farewell Address his last 
testament to his countrymen, he defined the foreign policy of the 
United States better than it has been defined before or since. He 
said that Europe has a "set of primary interests which to us have 
none or a very remote relation," and therefore he advised that we 
should not by "artificial ties implicate ourselves in the ordinary 
vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions 
of her friendships and enmities." 

My countrymen for many generations have accepted this coun- 
sel of our Founder as infallible, but they have not always appreciated 
the weight that Washington meant to give to the expression "artificial 
ties," and "ordinary vicissitudes and ordinary enmities." Wash- 
ington recognised that there might, as is now the case, be an ex- 
traordinary vicissitude in which a conflict, while originating primarily 
on the Continent of Europe, and primarily affecting its internal 
politics, might yet affect the very bases of civilisation, and impose 
upon the United States, as upon every civilised nation, the fullest 
responsibility to aid in maintaining the peace of the world by es- 
tablishing international justice. By "artificial ties" Washington 
meant, I think, hard and fast alliances of an entangling nature. He 
did not intend to ignore the natural ties, which spring from racial 
kinship or common ideals. 

The Monroe doctrine illustrates the same policy of isolation, 
for it was founded upon a disclaimer of any interest by the United 
States "in the internal affairs of Europe." 

I appeal to you, men of England — as many of you stand high 
in the public life of this country of settled traditions — if a tradition 
had existed in England for three centuries, and had persisted 
among nine generations of men who, although they differed upon 
every other question, yet never differed with respect to such policy — 

37 



could you reasonably expect that in a day or a week or a year that 
England, even in a great crisis of humanity, would throw aside a 
great settled tradition, the value and justice of which all its political 
parties had accepted for three centuries ? If such a policy had had in 
successive generations the unquestioning support of the elder and 
the younger Pitt, of Fox, Camden, Burke, Sheridan, of Peel, Pal- 
merston and Russell, of Gladstone, Disraeli and Salisbury, of Bal- 
four, Bonar Law, Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, and then a quarrel 
arose in another country three thousand miles away, would England 
in a day, or a month, or a year have disregarded a tradition of such 
exceptional authority ? Mutatis mutandis, and that was the position 
of the United States on August i, 1914. 

Were this all, the attitude of the United States as a political 
entity would be easily understood. But we have another tradition, 
which in this crisis has conflicted with our tradition of isolation. In 
every true American soul in the last eighteen months there has been 
a conflict of ideals. One was this ideal of detachment from European 
politics and our isolation ; the other was the ideal which we derived 
from the French Revolution, namely, the spirit of cosmopolitanism, 
which taught us that humanity was greater than any nation ; that the 
interests of civilisation were above those of any country ; that above 
all there was a conscience of mankind, by which the actions of any 
nation must be judged. 

When, therefore, the rape of Belgium affronted our conscience, 
the question inevitably arose, "shall we abandon the great tradition 
of political isolation, under which we have grown great, or shall we 
fail by inaction to do a duty, where the spirit of international justice 
imperiously calls upon us and every nation to play its part?" 

The practical genius of our people tried to solve the problem as 
best it could in so short a time, and our government was permitted 
by public opinion to follow an official policy of neutrality, which I 
think it is no exaggeration to call one of benevolent neutrality to 
the Allies, while the people of the United States, as individuals and 
collectively, were permitted to ignore the policy of neutrality by 
helping the Allies in every practicable way in their noble struggle for 
the best interests of civilisation. 

I believe that this war, among many other surpassing benefits, 
will bring nearer to realisation than ever before a sympathetic under- 
standing between Great Britain and the United States. We appre- 

38 



ciate the greatness of your Empire more than we, I think, appreciated 
it before. Our views in the past have been somewhat affected by 
our earlier history, and to a greater extent than you may imagine by 
the Napoleonic wars, because every American boy, at least in the 
exuberance of youthful imagination, ranks the great Napoleon as 
his hero next to Washington. This has always affected the attitude 
with which the American in the past has viewed the policies of your 
Empire. But now we have seen your Empire rise, in this great crisis 
of civilisation, to defend the rights of a little nation, and reveal itself 
— to use Milton's noble imagery — as "a noble and puissant nation, 
rousing itself like a strong man after his sleep and shaking its 
invincible locks." 

With deep admiration we have seen Great Britain follow the 
noblest policy in all its long and glorious history in staking its whole 
existence to save Belgium and aid France. The immortal valour of 
Tommy Atkins has also powerfully impressed us. We saw you, 
within three days, send that little army — little in this war — of over 
one hundred thousand men across the Channel, and offer them as a 
sacrifice to save your great and heroic neighbour on the south of the 
English Channel. We saw the thin red line at Ypres, suffocated by 
gases, rained upon by shrapnel, opposed by forces fourfold greater 
than their own and yet standing like a stone wall against the red tide 
of Prussian invasion. We saw Tommy Atkins realising that song 
that I heard in London twenty years ago : 

"To keep the flag a'flying, 
He's a'doing and a'dying 
Every inch of him a soldier, and a man." 

That has been the great benefit of the war to us, that it has 
brought us into a profound understanding and sympathetic apprecia- 
tion of your great Empire. If I were asked to say who was 
unwittingly the most beneficent stateman of modern times, I should 
undoubtedly say the Kaiser, for he has consolidated the British 
Empire, reinvigorated France, reorganised Russia, and has brought 
the United States and Great Britain nearer to a realisation of that 
complete sympathetic understanding, upon which an Entente Cor- 
diale may ultimately rest, than any other individual in the world. 

An Entente Cordiale must rest not merely upon a sympathetic 
understanding, but, as long as men are human, to some extent upon 

39 



common interests. We are entering upon the most portentous half 
century the world has ever seen. You will end this war, and you 
may end it speedily or within six months, or a year, two years. But 
what lies beyond? Over ravaged homes, desolated fields, and new 
made graves, men will gaze at each other for possibly fifty years with 
irreconcilable hatred. This world will be a seething cauldron of 
international hatred, in my judgment, for half-a-century. 

In this portentous and critical time to come, the United States 
will need you, and England will need the United States. 

May this possible inter-dependence in vital interests lead us to a 
practical recognition that these two great divisions of our race form 
a spiritual Empire of the English-speaking race, not made by con- 
stitutions, written documents or formal alliances, but constituting, 
as Proudhor, said in 1845, o^ Society in general, a "living being, 
endowed with an intelligence and activity of its own, and as such, a 
[spiritual] organic unit." This great Empire of the English-speaking 
race must stand united in spirit, though not organically, for unless it 
stands together, there is little hope that in these dreadful years to 
come that there will be the maintenance of any permanent peace in 
the only way that peace can be maintained, namely, through the 
vindication of justice. 

I have taken far too long, but I may add that in order to 
develop this sympathetic understanding we must fully appreciate 
the difficulties of each nation and "bear and forbear." 

For example, we have learned to appreciate that which your 
Empire has done. But if you will pardon me, I do not think you 
quite appreciate either the great difficulties of the United States in 
this crisis, a difficulty which would have been great if we had only 
to contend with our heterogeneous population. Has it ever yet 
occurred to you that we have in the United States of Teutonic origin, 
counting birth or immediate parentage, a population equal to one- 
third of all the men, women and children of Great Britain? Then 
we have, as I have explained, the great difficulty of a persistent 
tradition, which in all generations has powerfully influenced the 
American mind and has been hitherto vindicated by its results. Can 
you not see that you must not misinterpret a nation which cannot 
in a day abandon a cherished tradition, even if it be conceded that 
the interests of civilisation required it? 

Then there is a disposition on this side among some men to 

40 



misinterpret what we have tried to do as a people to help you. Some 
of the very things for which we have been most criticised are those 
that seem to me to redound to our credit. 

Take for example the sale of munitions. It is believed by many 
here that we have in a sordid and mercenary way deliberately 
profited by this world tragedy; that while civilisation was on the 
Cross we have been, as the Roman soldiers, parting the raiment of 
the crucified. 

Only an infinitesimal portion of the American people directly 
profited by this traffic. Indirectly, it is true, we have all profited by 
the immense prosperity thereby stimulated, but have you thought of 
the other side ? We have abandoned not only an unbroken friendship 
with the first military power of the world to give you munitions ; but 
we have incurred an obligation that will weigh heavily upon us in 
future years far beyond any possible economic profits that our indus- 
tries may temporarily gain by furnishing the Allies with munitions. 
To have placed an embargo on munitions to safeguard our internal 
peace and outward safety would not have violated neutrality in a 
legal sense. Sweden and Holland have forbidden many exports 
to protect their vital interests. We refused to do so as to war 
munitions, because the American people believed that in the earlier 
stages of the war, you needed our aid and were determined that at 
any cost you should have it. We fully realized that in doing so we 
exposed ourselves to a great and continuing peril. Why did 145,000 
men recently parade the streets of New York from early dawn to 
night? Why did 160,000 men parade in Chicago? Why did 60,000 
men parade in Boston? Was it Mexico? We care no more about a 
possible war with Mexico than a St. Bernard dog cares for a black 
and tan terrier. What was the meaning of this outpouring of all 
classes ? We know that we have incurred the undying enmity of Ger- 
many by doing you a service. We know that if she wins this war or 
even makes it a draw, that as sure as political events can ever be prog- 
nosticated, Germany will settle its account with the United States, for 
there is no country in the world next to the British Empire that 
Germany to-day hates as she does the United States. To avoid this 
very danger, which will burden us for generations to come, shifty 
politicians attempted to put an embargo on the export of munitions, 
but public opinion said "No" and our President called Congress 
together and made them stand up and be counted, and thereafter 

41 



there was no threatened interruption to the flow of munitions of war 
to the Allies. As a result, we are now doubling our army and largely 
increasing our navy, and future generations will bear the burden. 

Do you realise that not only have we contributed by the sacri- 
ficing labours of men, women and children, at least lo millions of 
pounds to relieve suffering in this war ; but that over 4,000 of our 
boys are fighting under the Maple Leaf for the Union Jack; and 
10,000 more are serving under the tricolour of France? The best 
blood of our youth from our Colleges and Universities are serving 
with the Ambulances, and doing the arduous and often dangerous 
work of taking the wounded from the trenches. If the bones of 
your sons are now buried in France, there are the bones of many a 
brave American boy who, without the protection of his flag, and 
with only the impulse of race patriotism, with the love, which the 
majority of the American people feel for the cause of the Allies 
in this crisis, have gone and given their young lives as a willing 
sacrifice. Therefore, I say to you, men of England, if there are 
pinpricks, do not misjudge the American people, who have done 
what they did under the most trying and delicate circumstances, and 
whose loyalty to the Empire of the English-speaking race has been 
demonstrated in this crisis of history. 

I am reminded very much of a scene I saw in Switzerland, in 
Lauterbrunnen, that most beautiful valley in all the world. There 
are the three crowning peaks of the Bernese Oberland, the Eiger, 
the Monch, and the Jungf rau. They are apparently separate and yet 
all three are based upon the common granite foundation of the 
eternal Alps. So I like to think of the three great democracies of 
civilisation — Great Britain, France and the United States — that 
while they are separate peaks in a purely political sense, yet they too 
stand upon a common foundation of justice and liberty. 

Our affection and admiration for France passes description. 
We think of France in this crisis as brave as Hector and yet like 
Andromache "smiling through her tears" and offering up the sacri- 
fice of her noble youth for the principles of liberty and justice, to 
which Great Britain and the United States have always been 
dedicated. 

I remember once when I was in this Valley of Lauterbrunnen 
that the Swiss guide asked me if he could sound for me an echo of 
an Alpine horn. He played the four notes of the common chord, 

42 



and as they reverberated back across the valley they were merged 
into the most gracious and beautiful harmonies that the mind of 
man could conceive. It sounded as if in that Cathedral of Nature 
some one was playing a divinely majestic organ. I like to think these 
four notes thus mingled typify the common traditions of these three 
great democracies and create a lasting harmony, which will contribute 
to the symphony of universal progress. 

The Swiss guide also asked me to hear the echo of a little brass 
cannon, and as he fired it the effect was almost bewildering. It 
seemed to me as if the very mountains had toppled from their 
bases. The smoke of the cannon drifted across my eyes, and for a 
moment obliterated the majestic range of the Bernese Alps. Finally 
the smoke cleared from my eyes, and the Eiger, the Monch, and 
the Jungfrau were again revealed in their undiminished beauty. 
May not that little cannon well typify Prussian militarism. 

When the smoke of this Titanic conflict passes from our eyes 
and the echoes of this portentous war shall die away into the 
terrible past, we shall — please God — see outlined against the infinite 
blue of His future these great democracies of civilisation — Great 
Britain, France, and the United States. 



43 



An American Advocate. 

[Editorial in the London Daily Telegraph of August 17. 
Reprinted in the New York Tribune of September 4.] 

This week end will see the departure from our shores of a 
distinguished visitor, who is also one of the truest friends and most 
powerful advocates of the cause for which this nation and its Allies 
took up arms two years ago. The Hon. James Montgomery Beck is 
returning to the United States after a stay among us, in the course 
of which our statesmen and other men of leading have been proud 
to do him honour. He is a type of American public man that 
has always been especially welcome in this country — a lawyer 
and administrator of eminence, an eloquent and powerful speaker 
a vigorous and human personality. But Mr. Beck had laid 
our people and those who stand with them in this war under 
an obligation that recommends him to them a hundred times more 
than the social talent in which his countrymen excel. There is no 
man who has done more than he — and many Americans have done 
much — to place before the people of the United States the funda- 
mental truths which are the foundation of the Allies' attitude in this 
war. The title of his book upon the origins of the struggle, "The 
Evidence in the Case," suggests the character of it. It is the work 
of a trained legal mind appealing to a legally minded people, who 
from the first sought seriously to arrive at an unprejudiced judg- 
ment on the rights and wrongs of the European quarrel. If they 
have long since formed — as an overwhelming majority of them have 
formed — a judgment on the matter which is unreservedly in favor 
of the Allies, it is owing in no small degree to the "fundamental 
brain work" Mr. Beck has done for the cause of the justice of which 
he had convinced himself. 

It was an advocacy of which we stood greatly in need. In no 
country had our enemies set on foot so extensive, so costly or so 
vigorous a propaganda as that which was directed to securing the 
sympathy of the United States. No diplomatic objective was more 
eagerly worked for by Germany and none did she more confidently 
count upon attaining. Passionately supported by a German-Amer- 

44 



ican population numbering; millions and including more men of 
wealth and influence than any other of the "hyphenated" sections of 
the American public, the strenuous efforts of Berlin seemed assured 
of at least a considerable degree of success; and that confidence 
must have been immeasureably increased by the non-appearance of 
anything approaching to an equal endeavour on the part of this 
country to win over American opinion to its side. Yet the German 
attempt has failed totally and disastrously. After six months of 
war the hopelessness of success was practically established, before 
the massacre of American citizens at sea and the insolent defiance 
of American law by Germany's diplomatic agents had finally turned 
every hestitating mind in the country against her. 

There was much to be said two years ago for the organizing 
by this country of a "publicity" campaign in the United States in 
opposition to that of our enemies ; but history, it may be, will pro- 
nounce that our inaction was — though we can scarcely take credit 
for it — the better policy. Fortunately for our cause, German acts 
did more than anything else could do to destroy the effect of German 
arguments; and, again fortunately for our cause, there were not 
wanting in America men of high ability and standing to bring dis- 
interested minds to the study of the question and to draw from it an 
intensity of moral conviction that made them infinitely more con- 
vincing champions of our cause than any agents of ours could have 
been. Among the foremost of them Mr. Beck. 

In the speeches which he has delivered here he has told us many 
things as to the American attitude which were far from being gen- 
erally realised by the ordinary British citizen. He has reminded us, 
for example, of a fact which had been to a great extent overlaid 
by much sentimental speaking and writing in recent years ; the fact 
that American public opinion never was and is not now predisposed 
in favour of Great Britain in forming judgment upon any British 
quarrel. He has reminded us, further, that friendship with Germany 
has been a cherished tradition of American policy, and that in depart- 
ing from it Americans have deliberately faced the prospect of Ger- 
many's enduring enmity. He has shown us, in fact, that the attitude 
of his countrymen, like his own, toward the European antagonists is 
founded upon a plain conviction of the justice of our cause and the 
iniquity of our enemy's. He has explained to us, moreover, what 
many of us have, for want of knowledge, failed to understand — 

45 



the fallacy of the notion that the United States, with no direct interest 
of her own at stake, was to be expected to take sides as a belligerent 
with the nations whose cause is supported by the great mass of 
American opinion; the strength of the tradition of detachment from 
the politics of Europe which has persisted from the days of 
Washington. 

And Mr. Beck has reminded us of the immense advantages 
secured to the Allied nations by the free export of munitions from 
America and by American financial aid. He has reminded us of 
the vast sums contributed by Americans to the relief of suffering 
caused by the war and of the thousands of his countrymen who are 
fighting to-day under the banners of Canada and of the French 
Republic. The people of Great Britain, we say again, owe a great 
debt to this worthy representative of all that is best in the great 
democracy of the United States. We bid him godspeed on his 
homeward journey and wish him yet more success in the cause he 
has done so much to further — the attainment of a cordial and 
enduring understanding between his country and ours. 



46 






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